Month: February 2016

Confirming the months-running fears of neighbors, Extell Development Corp. was taken to task over its construction of the eighty-story One Manhattan Square down on South Street. The Department of Buildings issued stop-work orders due to cracking in the adjacent building at 82 Rutgers Street. Thus the “immediately hazardous” language attached to the edict.

These types of fissures have also been a common sight throughout Two Bridges Tower at 82 Rutgers Street since ground-break. In the early days of the deafening excavation work, walls and ceilings separated and crumbled, infrastructure shook, and doors were no longer closing properly. All along, residents voiced concerns, but were shot down by Extell and construction manager LendLease, who said that the building was structurally sound. For its part, however, Barnett and company are actively “touring” the affected apartments to assess damage, and will repair problems at their own cost.

“It was freezing outside, but the 60-odd Chinatown community activists gathered in front of Gracie Mansion yesterday were fired up. In English, Spanish and Chinese, they decried Mayor de Blasio’s rezoning plan and ties to the real estate industry, flinging insults and calling for his resignation. “Coward!” “Racist!” “Shame!” they yelled. As the sun set, they even left him with a “gift.”

Mayor de Blasio’s current “Affordable Housing Plan,” including ZQA and MIH, is a developer-backed scam. It promotes luxury development that is pushing out our local businesses and services, displacing more people of color and working families, and eliminating more affordable units than it claims to create. Community Boards across the city are overwhelmingly opposed to it. The people of NYC are opposed to it, as evident in the public testimony from City Planning and City Council hearings. It is clear that Mayor de Blasio’s solution to end the Tale of Two Cities is to destroy our neighborhoods and create one New York for the rich.

In response to this attack, people from across the city are joining in a grassroots alliance to stop Mayor de Blasio’s developer-led zoning plans, and demand a “People First” plan for our communities that will protect us against displacement.